North Somerset shortlists bidders for community services contract

Incumbent provider North Somerset Community Partnership and Swindon based Seqol have both passed the first stage, an invitation to negotiate, as has Somerset Partnership Foundation Trust.

North Somerset and Seqol are both social enterprises created from the provider arms of the former North Somerset and Swindon primary care trusts respectively, as part of the transforming community services programme. Somerset Partnership was originally a mental health provider in Somerset and also took on community services under TCS.

Sirona Care and Health, a TCS social enterprise based in Bath, was longlisted for the contract but has not made the final round.

The successful provider will start providing services in April 2016. The current contract with North Somerset CCG is worth around £24m annually.

Seven volunteers from North Somerset Healthwatch have been working with the CCG on the procurement, including on bid evaluation.

Mary Backhouse, North Somerset CCG’s chief clinical officer, said: “This is a ‘coproduction’, in that the views of the patients, carers, families and the public as a whole will be pivotal in the configuration of the services we commission and the organisation that is chosen to provide those services.”